Schedule of assignments

Instructor:

Carl A. Miller
carlmi @umich.edu
East Hall 3827
(734) 764-6442

Office hours: M 11am-1pm, F 9-10am.

Textbooks:

• Introduction to Coding Theory by J. H. van Lint (3rd edition). (Required)

• Fundamentals of Error-Correcting Codes by W. Cary Huffman and Vera Pless. (Optional)

This course is centered on the problem of optimizing information transmission across an unreliable channel. This problem leads to some interesting theoretical constructions which are built from abstract algebra and combinatorics. The purpose of the class is to introduce students to some of these constructions.

We will spend the majority of the semester going through chapters 2-6 in van Lint's book. These chapters cover Shannon's theorem, basic concepts in coding theory, and the construction of some families of good codes. Time permitting, we may deal with some additional topics such as turbo codes, algebraic geometry codes, or space-time codes.

Coursework and Grading:

Problem sets will be assigned about once every 2 weeks and will usually be due on Wednesdays. (Note: Assignments can be turned in up to five days late--counting weekends--and there's a 10% grade penalty for each day.) We will also have one midterm (March 6th) and a final exam.

Here is the grade breakdown: